My Creative Space...or is it?

My Creative Space this week isn't really mine, I was more than happy to share it with my beautiful daughter and her friend.
I recently discovered this excellent tutorial over at Leonie's and I thought it would be a perfect project for my Junior Crafter to try with her new machine. We went to Spotlight where she and a friend each selected two fabrics for their reversible headbands and we came home to sew.

Pinning fabric

More pins

Ta-Daaaah!

And they are reversible!

Thanks Leonie for sharing the tutorial, and well done to two gorgeous little 8 year olds who persisted carefully with their cutting out, pinning, topstitching and thread trimming and had a wonderful time in My Creative Space this week. I'm so glad that my little girl loves making stuff as much as I do, and we have so much fun making stuff together.

For more spaces, visit here. As always, thanks to Kirsty for hosting this fun meme.

Name Tag Swap - housekeeping

Thank you to everyone who has signed up for the Sew It Together Name Tag Swap, I'm thrilled that so many people will be taking part in this fun swap!

Just a little housekeeping - if you signed up for the swap, can you please now send me an email and tell me:
 *Your first name as you would like it to appear on your name tag, eg, Jennifer/Jen/Jenny/Jennie 

*Your postal address which I will pass on to your swap partner so she can send you your completed name tag

*The name of your blog (just so I know who you are!)

My email address is thecraftgypsy [at] iprimus [dot] com [dot] au
Also if you know anyone who is going to Sew It Together who hasn't signed up, please mention the swap to them so they don't miss out!

Sign ups close on 28th February.

Sew It Together Name Tag Swap

Are you going to Sew It Together? Would you like to arrive at this exciting event wearing a very special, lovingly handmade NAME TAG of your very own? You would? Sign up for the swap here! Yes, that's right, I am hosting a Name Tag Swap for anyone who is going to Sew It Together in May.

Guidelines for the swap are as follows:
Name tags are to be no larger than 9cm in any direction (shape is up to you)

Name tags will include first name only. Make sure you email me and let me know how your name should appear on your name tag, we don't want any spelling errors!!! (Blog names will be included on the access pass you will be issued with at the event so will not be part of the name tag swap, name tags will be first name only).

Name tags should be in the colours Red and Aqua to tie into the colour theme of Sew It Together.

Name tags must have a safety pin or brooch finding on the back. They will most likely be attached to a 15mm wide lanyard which will be issued to participants at the event. Preferably the pin should be vertical for ease of attaching to the lanyard, however if the dimensions of your name tag require it then the pin can be fixed horizontally

You can make your name tag using any medium you like, however, as this event is SEW It Together the only thing we ask is that your name tag be sewn/stitched in some way :) Get creative! Think fabric, yarn, embroidery, applique, transfers, stitch sketching, squares, circles, flowers, quilting, stencilling, crochet, ribbons, buttons, paint...use anything you like as long as it is sewn in some way!

You will be given the name of the person you are making a tag for, but sshhh, don't tell them! It's a secret until it arrives in the post! And of course, you won't know who is making YOUR name tag until it arrives! What fun!

Completed name tags are to be posted directly to your recipient no later than FRIDAY 9TH APRIL to allow time for postal delivery before people begin packing up to make the trek to Melbourne! If for some reason you cannot post your completed name tag by this date, please let me know immediately, I'm happy to help in any way that I can to make sure everyone gets their name tag in time for the event!

This swap is only for bloggers who are attending at least one event at Sew It Together in May 2010.

If you want to join the swap, leave a comment on this post. Don't forget to also drop me an email with all your details which I will pass on to the person who will make your name tag.

Please read the guidelines of the swap carefully and only participate if you are happy to abide by them, and PLEASE make sure I can contact you via email! Any questions? Ask away, I'm here to help!

Sign ups start now and will close on Sunday 28th February. I will contact each of you via email by Tuesday 2nd March and tell you who you will be making a name tag for. Get creative and have fun!!!

Did you miss me?

Hello lovely Bloggy friends, I'm back! I have been lost at sea for the last couple of weeks, drowning in an ocean of ballet classes, family birthdays, working bees, immunisation schedules, a family member's health crisis, daily readers, renovation plans, a new baby cousin, meal plans, kinder orientation, earth moving contractors, tennis lessons and all the other madness that makes up my daily life!

Recent creativity at Chateau Craft Gypsy: not much! (unless you count my creativity in cramming scheduling at least 8 days worth of activities for 3 children into each week). I still haven't started finished the safety vests for kinder, my granny square is still in a bag awaiting some attention, but I did manage to throw together this last minute library bag for a dear little girl's 4th birthday last week. 

And I am working on another fun little project with a bloggy friend which we will be announcing very soon, stay tuned for that!

More on the safety vests

Not surprisingly I'm still struggling a bit with sewing vinyl onto nylon!

This is the pocket I'm sewing on; the angled bit sticking out to the right will work like an envelope flap and will be tucked in to keep the Information Card in place, so it can't slide out of the pocket opening.

The first challenge was how to keep the vinyl pocket in place on the vest in order to sew it. I can't pin it as the pins will leave holes in the vinyl, but blu-tack seems to work fine! Only, I can't put blu-tack on the vest itself as it doesn't come off (found that out the hard way, lucky it's a sample vest!), but the paper template is stuck to the vest with sticky tape, and the vinyl pocket is stuck to the paper with blu-tack. Can anyone say "complicated"?

Here is the vinyl pocket in place, ready for sewing.

When I went to Spotlight for materials (and advice) I was assured that I did not need a special foot to sew thin clear vinyl, apparently it will 'glide right through as the feed dogs are underneath'. I have done a little bit of research, and thought I may have to buy a teflon foot, but was again assured that my regular foot would be fine.  Fail.

Have you met my old friend Quick Unpick?

A quick fix was in order as I was not driving back to Spotlight to buy a teflon foot. Some powder, although a bit messy, did the trick.

With some powder on the vinyl it did glide under the foot for much better results (and wiped off pretty easily too).

I also discovered that reverse stitching to lock the threads is a bad idea when sewing with vinyl. Instead, I pulled the top thread through to the wrong side and tied off the threads before trimming.

Here is the 'envelope flap' out...

And tucked in to stop the card falling out.

So now I have the method sorted on the sample vest, only 60 more to go. Wish me luck!

My Creative Space

My Creative Space this week is filled with fluorescent nylon vests, metres of clear vinyl, and some upholstery thread.

Our kinder has just acquired 60 Preschool sized Fluorescent Safety Vests for the children to wear in case of an emergency evacuation. (We live in a very high risk area for bushfires so evacuation is a real possibility). Each child has an Emergency Information Card displaying their name and containing inside all their personal information that they must wear during an emergency. Previously they have been worn on a lanyard around the neck (which did create some safety issues in itself). However, now that we have these very bright safety vests, each child's card can be attached to the vest itself. The (fairly expensive) vests were the bright idea of The Bloke Who Lives At My Place, and were acquired courtesy of a local government grant. Upon enquiring at a few alterations businesses he was quoted $660 to have a clear vinyl pocket sewn onto the back of the vests. $660!!! Don't worry, I said, I'm sure I can do it.

I'll keep you posted. Thansk for hosting Kirsty! For more Creative Spaces, click here.

Fruit Cobbler

Made with fresh nectarines from a dear friend's tree (thanks J.B.!)

This is a recipe of mine originally created from a Choose Your Own Adventure Cooking session, now I use it often, you can use any fresh stone fruit, or use tinned fruit if that's what you have on hand!

Cream 1/2 cup of butter and 1/2 cup of sugar.
Add alternately 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup plain wholemeal flour, 1/2 cup plain flour & 3/4 teaspoon bicarb sifted in with the flour.
Add a small dash of vanilla extract.
Spread the mixture into a greased pie dish:

Next, add your fruit. I used nectarines. Just place them on top of the base mixture. The flesh of the nectarines looked a little green but they tasted lovely and sweet, definitely ripe. Maybe it's the type of nectarine?

Sprinkle some brown sugar and some shredded coconut on top (sorry, I'm a bit vague about the quantities...not very much, okay? Like in the pic! It's probably a heaped tablespoon or so of brown sugar, and about the same of coconut. I think. Lol. I'm clearly not qualified to hand out recipe advice!)

Bake it at 200 degrees C for about 20-25 minutes. If the middle is still gooey, it's not ready. If the crust is burnt, you cooked it too long!

I was planning to take a lovely shot of it when it came out of the oven looking all golden delicious, but I was too slow. It's the quick and the dead around here after dinner! I managed to shove some kiddies out of the way and take this pic for you:

It's delicious served warm with ice cream. Yum!